


Last Waltz

by Erestorandfin



Category: Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: Angst, F/M, Happy Ending?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-24
Updated: 2020-12-24
Packaged: 2021-03-10 21:01:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,370
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28293504
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Erestorandfin/pseuds/Erestorandfin
Summary: “Goddamn it, can’t you ever give me a straight answer?”Her eyes narrowed.
Relationships: Chakotay/Kathryn Janeway, Chakotay/Seven of Nine (mentioned)
Comments: 14
Kudos: 48





	Last Waltz

**Author's Note:**

> Kathryn’s thoughts are in italics.
> 
> Inspiration for this story - 'Last Waltz' by The Rasmus.
> 
> Endless thanks to my wonderful Beta Mary S.

Make me blind  
Cover my eyes  
You can do what you want  
I'm paralyzed by the perfect mood  
When we're dancing with blindfolds on  
You make it easy to love you and hate you  
I can't explain it, I feel insecure  
Say it simple: "You die just to live again."  
You say we're waiting for the last waltz

Another you and me  
Another revolutionary heavenly romance  
Waiting for the last waltz  
And so it seems  
We won't find the solution  
Confusion leads the dance  
We're waiting for the last waltz

Praise the wine  
So divine  
And it stings like a rose  
Allow the night to flow inside  
Open the window and let the wind blow  
Highlight of the night is the unhappy ending  
You keep refusing to answer my calls  
Drop the bending and stop the pretending  
You say get ready for the last waltz

Another you and me  
Another revolutionary heavenly romance  
Waiting for the last waltz  
And so it seems  
We won't find the solution  
Confusion leads the dance  
We're waiting for the last waltz

***

She took her time answering the door, as though she could tell the visit wasn’t going to be a pleasant one. Or maybe she was just trying to ignore him; that seemed to have been her inclination so far, anyway.

“I need to talk to you.” Chakotay’s voice was calm, but his dark eyes betrayed his fury as he strode past her into her quarters.

“Well, why don’t you come on in?” Her dry reply both biting and filled with wry humour, though she didn’t smile as she spoke.

“To what do I owe the pleasure, Commander?”

“Why are you here?”

“I believe that was my line. This is, after all, my quarters.”

“Goddamn it, can’t you ever give me a straight answer?”

Her eyes narrowed.

“I believe I’ve been quite clear. I’m here to get you all back to the Alpha Quadrant.”

“I didn’t ask what you planned to do. I asked why you are here. You know perfectly well they are not the same thing.”

“Don’t you trust me, Chakotay?”

“I can’t say I do. You waltz in here with a plan which is extreme, even by our standards, and promise us an instant way home, as long as we do exactly what you say. You don’t seem to care that we already evaluated this option, that Kathryn has already made this decision. She has earned my trust, but you haven’t, Admiral, and I don’t feel like letting you blindly order us around your chess board with no idea of what we are doing. I don’t believe for a second there isn’t more to it than that, that you aren’t keeping things from us.”

“I AM Kathryn, Chakotay! I’m preventing you all from spending another 16 years stuck in this godforsaken Quadrant. You should be thanking me. I’ve risked everything to come back for you!”

“Honestly, I don’t know whether you are her or not, and frankly, I don’t care. All I know is that ever since you appeared, the person I love the most has been more miserable than I have ever seen. I want to know what you’ve done to her.”

“I suggest you talk to her-”

“Do you think I haven’t already tried that? My Kathryn won’t talk to me. Whatever you’ve done, you’ve done it well. But then I suppose you would know exactly where to hurt her, wouldn’t you?”

Her laughter was quite unlike her younger self, no longer a sound of joy but twisted misery, as though she no longer understood what it was meant to be like.

“ _Your_ Kathryn? I wouldn’t let _your_ Seven hear that, Chakotay.”

He blanched in surprise. Shocked by the cold and deliberate way she was willing to attack him. His Kathryn had a sharp tongue, and was not afraid to dress down anyone, including him, when it was deserved. But _this_ Kathryn had honed it to a surgical precision.

“Of course I know, Chakotay, I’ve done this all before. And what makes you think I’ve said anything? She knows more than you think without my help. She already knows about Seven, she has done for a while, despite you not having the courage to tell her.”

Unnervingly, the more she spoke, the more convinced he became that this was indeed some version of her, that once she had been his Kathryn, but now she was clearly someone else. Though he couldn’t deny every word cut deeply, it wasn’t what she said that gave her away, it was her mannerisms. Having accepted who she was, he realised exactly what was going on. There was so much being withheld, and her increasing aggression was a clear indication that she was trying to distract him from his questions, make him angry enough to leave. Taking a deep breath, he continued.

“For some reason, she seems to trust everything you tell her. The only explanation is that you have told her something, something that is going to happen if she doesn’t agree to your plan.”

“Of course she trusts me, I’m her.”

“No,” his voice was quiet as he surveyed her intently. “No, I don’t think you are. Technically, you might be who she becomes, but you’re not her, not anymore. You may have her memories, but I know her too, and even if you _were_ her, she wouldn’t trust you automatically. She has seen too much to trust blindly; so whatever you have told her has to have been something extremely convincing for her to go along with this plan you have come up with. I want to know what it is, what you could say to break her heart like this. To make her feel she can no longer trust me.”

“Why does it matter? Surely saving everyone from more than another decade stuck out here is worth the sacrifice of our relationship?” Her eyes were steel, a look he knew so well and yet nothing like it. Gone was the fire; there was no passion there, just ice.

“No. There is nothing worth that. How can you even suggest it?”

 _You’ve already done it Chakotay, when you chose Seven. All it takes is time for us to realise it_.

For a second he could almost see Kathryn in her eyes, nothing more than a whisper of her former self as she shook her head. That was who he needed to appeal to.

“Admiral. Kathryn. You look at me like you can’t wait to get away from me, like we aren’t even friends anymore. What do I do to you to make you this way? Please, I need to know. I can’t bear this. I need to understand. I’ve never wanted to hurt her, to hurt you. Whatever I’ve done, whatever you think is going to happen, it doesn’t have to. Please, tell me why it’s so important for us to get home now.”

She did her best to look at him dispassionately, to end this conversation here. But even now, even after everything, she found she was still utterly unable to resist him. Her sigh, when it came, was deep, and weary. As though a lifetime of memories were crushing the life from her.

“Seven’s going to die. But first, you are going to marry her.”

“What?”

“There was a time when I thought there could be nothing worse than all the years of pushing you away, with only the faintest hope that one day we would get back and I could finally tell you how I felt. But it was just a fantasy. And those first seven years were nothing compared to the next three watching you with her. Watching you get married, and still being unable to give up hope, unable to let you go.

“If you stay here, that is what will happen. In two years’ time, _your_ Kathryn will officiate your wedding. She’ll never let you know how much she’s hurting. You have no idea of how much guilt she – I – carry from the years of hell we put you through. There is nothing that could compel her to deny you a chance at happiness. So she’ll smile and give you her blessings, and she’ll never be her again.”

“How could I-“

“You didn’t know. Seven asked me, how could I say no? She didn’t understand our relationship, what it would do to me. When you found out, you were horrified, but it was too late to do anything.

“A year after you were married, she died. All I could think of was all the times I had wished for you, wished things were different, swore that if I ever got the chance, I would make different decisions. It felt like I made it happen. The remaining years were worse, watching as everything that was you disappear, unable to help, to do anything to ease your suffering. Her death broke you, and any chance we ever had. But even that wasn’t enough to make me let go. I tried so hard to help, but I think a part of you blamed me too. At the end, we weren’t friends anymore, not really.”

He could only look in despair at the remains of the woman he still loved, unable to comprehend the extent of her suffering and misery.

“I’m sorry.” It wasn’t enough, but there wasn’t anything else he could think to say, he knew there were no words that would make any difference. “Do we never reconcile after we get home?”

Her eyes were bright as she looked at him, and he suddenly understood why his presence affected her so much.

“You know, I wanted to go back to the start, to stop myself stranding us here at all. But I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t stand the thought of a timeline where we never knew each other - where I delivered you to Starfleet. And despite how it ended, I loved Seven. I couldn’t stop us from freeing her from the collective, she deserved the chance to live. This is the best I could do, to come back to the only other chance we had to get home quicker and try to change _your Kathryn’s_ mind about taking the risk. But I can’t let her go through what I did, Chakotay. We can spare her from that. I can get you all back, and you can live a full life with Seven instead of the tragedy of my time. But first, if you ever really loved me, loved her, you have to make her let go, kill her hopes now. Because she can’t do it herself. And I can tell you, the life I have led is no life at all.”

“I don’t believe those are the only options. She isn’t you yet, Kathryn, and I’m not him. You say your only hope was that we would get home, and you could tell me how you really felt. If we follow your plan, tomorrow we will either be dead, or we will be home. If we die, none of this matters anyway. But if we succeed… surely you can see that will change everything? I don’t want the future you have described, and neither do you, or you wouldn’t be here. Your dream can be her reality. Doesn’t she deserve the chance?”

She looked away.

“It’s too late, Chakotay. Our dance is almost over now, the best you can do is decide how it ends.”

“Do you still love me?” He forced himself to watch her as he spoke, knowing the brutality of his question, how it would cut her. But he had to know, needed her to know it was never too late.

Her chest heaved with a sob as she turned away from him.

“Yes.”

“And so does she, and I don’t think anything you can come up with will change that. The Kathryn I know never gives up.”

“The Kathryn you know died a long time ago, Chakotay.”

He rested a warm hand on her shoulder.

“Not in this timeline. Never in this timeline, I promise you that.”

***

He knew she could hear his furious knocking on her door but was refusing to answer.

“Kathryn, I’m not going anywhere until you talk to me, so unless you want half the crew to walk past and find me sleeping outside your door you had better let me in.”

Her eyes when she finally opened the door were full of fury.

“Kathryn, I know what the Admiral told you. But that doesn’t have to be our future.”

“We need to be focused for tomorrow, I can’t deal with all of this right now.”

“I know, Kathryn, I promise I’m not trying to make anything harder for you. But as much as we hope tomorrow will take us home, there is a chance we won’t make it. I can’t let our relationship end the way it is now. I need you to answer one question for me, and I promise, I will let this go until we are home. I’ll do whatever tomorrow brings without complaint. But before that, I have to know.” He could see her wary look as she tried not to be drawn in by his plea, knowing how much she would be hating seeing his distress, even though she knew the likely cost for his peace of mind was the sacrifice of her own.

“I don’t want to go over what the Admiral said, but I know her timeline paints a bleak view of the future. I have no doubt she has only highlighted to you the absolute worst; when I spoke to her, she felt her only option was to force you to give up hope completely.” Watching her carefully, he paused before continuing, as though his next words didn’t have the potential to make or break them both.

“So in the end, there is only one thing that still matters, Kathryn. Did she succeed? Have you given up?”

The silence was heavy between them, and like a mirror of her future self, he watched her turn from him. Endless moments passed without any acknowledgment of his question, until he began to believe she wasn’t going to reply at all.

“No.”

**Author's Note:**

> DISCLAIMER: Star Trek: Voyager and all its characters belong to Paramount Pictures/CBS; no infringement of copyright is intended.


End file.
